Goal? What is the purpose of the organization? What are our strengths, How do the following advance our objectives? Regular events and what should they be, expand membership, create alliances with UFAS, PROFS and AAUP, how to get feedback from members about what should we do and nonmembers what would we do to get them to be members?

V: Report on case before WUU – #1

VI: New Business

Concerns were raised about the Faculty Assistants Pay Scale = TA but at a lower** pay rate. – 9 mo only $29,945, Sr. $34,316. Chemistry department advertising faculty assistants with TA but cannot be a student.

NB.: We are not sure how much percentage Faculty Assistants make. Are they .50FTE or .75FTE or 1.00 FTE? We should be aware the pay rate listed for TA’s online is very misleading. For TA’s we need to divide the number listed ($32,392 minimum per annum) by 9 months, and then again by the percentage of the employment to find out the actual pre-tax rate. For example: while the online salary may lead you to think that TA’s make $3,599 pre-tax per month, the real pay is approximately $1799 minimum pre-tax/month for 50%, $1199 for 33%.

We found a recent comparable position for a Faculty Associate in School of Journalism (.50 FTE, base rate of $37,135/year). The position requires an MA degree, and non-student status, but compensation would be $1548/month pre-tax. In effect, this would confirm our intuition that we should be very wary about these “replacement positions” starting to appear. For point of reference, as a TA-Senior with a .50 FTE, one can expect about $1,500 after tax (closer to $1,900 pre-tax).

WUU Supports TAA in their fight against Segregated Fee billing changes. No more nickles, no more dimes!

"Seg Fee Changes

The bursar proposes that grads should pay our seg fees before our first paycheck, and those who cannot pay seg fees should enroll in a payment plan, for which they would charge an additional $50 fee.

This would be an undue burden on graduate students, many of whom are unemployed through the summer. TAA co-presidents have been meeting with the bursar to discuss solutions that have not been explored, including seg fee remission, scholarships to cover seg fees, or getting the bursar's office to fix their billing system so this isn't a big administrative headache for them.

(Yes, this boils down to an administrative headache. Let that sink in for a second.)"